Lecture 7: Narrative persuasion and self-persuasion

Question 1

What is the power of self-persuasion?

Answer 1

• Indirectly motivating people to persuade themselves to change their attitudes or behavior
• They need to believe that the motivation for change comes from within
• Let them generate arguments themselves

This way self-persuasion has long-lasting effects.

Question 2

When is self-persuasion a useful strategy?

Answer 2

• When a direct attempt on persuasion is likely to fail.
• When the target group does not need any convincing of the importance to change in behavior, just simply does not act upon it

Confront people with their own hypocrisy evoking cognitive dissonance which leads to change

Question 3

What is the core idea of self-persuasion?

Answer 3

You let people come-up with their own arguments on why they should change their behavior.

Self-generated / own-generated arguments are more persuasive.

These arguments can evoke cognitive dissonance among people that are already convinced that their own behavior bad.

Question 4

How do you apply self-persuasion?

Answer 4

• Trigger self-generation by using open-ended questions
• Use hypothetical questions
• By watching other people go through the process (via character identification)

Question 5

Why do narratives help in persuasion? (narrative persuasion)

Answer 5

Help to overcome various forms of resistance to persuasion, such as putting the information about 97% effectiveness of condoms in a scene of the show friends.

Could also be stories in commercials, so non-entertaining content.

Question 6

What are two forms of narrative persuasion?

Answer 6

• General (narrative) involvement

- Involvement with the character

Question 7

What is narrative involvement?

Answer 7

Being transported into the storyline, so all mental systems and capacities become focus on events occurring in the narrative, rather than one’s immediate environment.

Question 8

What are 3 different types of involvement with the characters?

Answer 8

1. Identification
2. Wishful identification
3. Perceiving similarity

Question 9

What is identification in involvement with the characters?

Answer 9

Absorbed, really taking the character’s perspective, stepping into their shoes and experiencing their emotions.

Question 10

What is wishful identification in involvement with the characters?

Answer 10

Not really absorbing but looking up to the character from a distance, desiring to be like them.

Question 11

What is perceiving similarity in involvement with the characters?

Answer 11

PSI (ParaSocial Interaction) and liking.

Question 12

When is narrative persuasion useful?

Answer 12

When:

• Neutralize avoidance
• Neutralize contesting
• Neutralize empowering

Question 13

What is neutralize avoidance in narrative persuasion?

Answer 13

Introduce a topic that the target group would otherwise avoid

Question 14

What is neutralize contesting in narrative persuasion?

Answer 14

A narrative is much less threatening than a message, it also distracts from counter-arguing

Question 15

What is neutralize empowering in narrative persuasion?

Answer 15

Involvement with the character can increase the perceived vulnerability and self-efficacy. In addition, it can change social normals and outcome expectancies

Question 16

What did Moyer-Guse et al. (2011) found about narrative persuasion?

Answer 16

• The more people identify with the character, the more they are likely to perform comparable behavior.
• More identified in less counter-arguing
• Identification did not effect people their won perceived vulnerability, but could also be a “sleeper”-effect, meaning that it will take a while until this measured.